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The Playoff Picture: August 26

By: Adam Jardy

The Columbus Dispatch - August 26, 2013 12:07 PM

With 10 games remaining, the Crew realistically needed at least seven or eight wins to have any
hopes of reaching the playoffs.

Saturday night’s game at Real Salt Lake stood as the toughest challenge, but the 4-0 loss the
Crew suffered was arguably not the worst thing to happen to the team. That would be losing Federico
Higuain, the team’s most important player, for two games. It would be a tough road to take even
with Higuain, but the loss of the team’s captain, designated player and co-leading scorer deals the
biggest blow to the Crew’s fledgling postseason hopes.

Taking Higuain out of the situation, the Crew still has little statistical chance of making the
playoffs. According to www.sportsclubstats.com, the Crew’s chances of reaching the postseason are
2.3 percent. With 29 points, the Crew remains eighth in the East and seven points behind
fifth-place New England.

What need to happen this week to improve those chances? Let’s take a look…

The MathSince MLS went to a 34-game schedule in the 2011 season, the final team to make the playoffs
in either conference has finished with an average of 47.8 points – an average of 1.41 points earned
per match.

The Crew now sits at 29 points through 25 games played, an average of 1.16 points earned per
match. In order to reach 47.8 points, the Crew must earn 18.8 points in its final 9 matches. That
averages out to 2.09 points earned per match, a figure that would be tops in all of MLS this
season. Current Supporters’ Shield leader Real Salt Lake is averaging 1.67 points earned per match
while posting a 13-8-6 record.

Who To Watch This Week

Aside from the fact that the Crew can ill afford many more losses, if any at all, the team needs
others to start dropping points. Two of the three teams directly ahead of the Crew in the Eastern
Conference standings still have a game in hand, further complicating matters.

For now, let’s take the approach that the Crew could rise as high as fifth in the standings.
That means any points earned by Montreal, New York, Sporting Kansas City and Philadelphia will have
minimal impact on the Crew’s postseason chances. That could change in the coming weeks should the
Crew fashion a significant winning streak. The Crew would need three wins and three New England
losses to overtake the Revolution on points, but the Crew could also move into a tie with
Philadelphia should it also drop three straight.

The two teams directly ahead of the Crew in the standings – Houston and Chicago – play each
other Sunday afternoon in Houston. Both teams have a game in hand on the Crew in addition to a
multiple-game lead.

Fifth-place New England, which is tied with Houston on points but has a five-goal advantage on
the season to earn the second tiebreaker, will host woeful Toronto FC on Friday night.

In short, Crew fans need to root for a draw – preferably a scoreless one – for the Dynamo and
Fire and a major Toronto upset. Of course, anything less than a Crew win would make most of this a
moot point.

The Good NewsThe Crew still has a home game against Chicago and two games against the Revolution. It also
has a home game remaining against Houston, meaning the Crew can gain at least three points on each
of the three teams immediately above in the standings without needing outside help.

Chicago will play four games in 13 days starting Sept. 1 with a home date against the Dynamo.
From there, it’s at Seattle (Sept. 7), at Toronto (Sept. 11) and home to face New England (Sept.
14). After Chicago finishes that marathon stretch, its next game will be at Crew Stadium. If the
Fire is still standing, that would be a prime opportunity for the Crew to earn a six-point swing in
the standings.

The next two games are at home, where the Crew has won two straight.

That’s about it.

The Bad NewsLots of this was outlined above, but it’s obviously not a rosy picture for the Crew.

The Crew trails New England in wins, which is the first tiebreaker in case of a tie in total
points. The next tiebreaker is goals scored, and the Crew trails the Revolution by five goals. That
means that the Crew, in actuality, remains eight points out of the playoffs unless it would
overtake the fifth-place team in total wins.

The Crew has only played two games without Higuain in the starting lineup, and both were early
in his career. Higuain came off the bench at halftime in his first appearance – a 2-2 draw at
Houston on August 19, 2012 – and was a final-minute substitution due to injury in a 3-1 loss at New
York on Sept. 15, 2012. It is almost impossible to overstate how big of a loss his presence will be
for the Crew.

Of the team’s last nine games, eight are against teams with more wins than losses and the ninth
is against a team at .500.